VISITING HOSPITAL

All hospital visitors are recommended to wear a medical face mask. Expand this message for information about visiting hospital.

Last updated:
13 March 2023

Some visitor restrictions for all Te Whatu Ora Waitaha Canterbury hospitals and health facilities remain in place, but we have relaxed others.

There is still a heightened risk to vulnerable people in hospital and so we recommend all people wear a mask when visiting any of our facilities and follow other advice designed to keep patients, staff and  visitors safe.

To keep everybody safe:

  • Visitors or support people must not visit our facilities if they are unwell. Do not visit if you have recently tested positive for COVID-19 and haven’t completed your isolation period.
  • Patients may have more than one visitor, except in some situations such as multi-bed rooms where it can cause overcrowding.
  • Surgical/medical masks are recommended to be worn at all sites. Masks will be provided if you don’t have one.
  • For Specialist Mental Health Services everyone is strongly encouraged to wear a face mask in all inpatient areas and areas where consumers are receiving care (i.e. community appointments, home-visits, transporting people). Discretion may be applied in cases where masks impair your ability to communicate effectively.
  • Visitors must not eat or drink in multibed rooms because of the increased risk when multiple people remove their face mask in the same space.
  • Hand sanitiser is available and must be used.

Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding as our staff work hard to protect and care for some of the most vulnerable in our community.

Visiting patients with COVID-19

  • People can visit patients who have COVID-19 but they must wear an N95 mask – this will be provided if you don’t have one.
  • Other methods of communication will be facilitated e.g. phone, Facetime, Zoom, WhatsApp etc where visits aren’t possible.

All of our Hospitals

Visiting hours for our hospitals have returned to pre COVID-19 hours with the exception of Christchurch Women’s Hospital.

All visitors are recommended to wear a medical face mask.

Parents/caregivers are able to be with their child in hospital and visitors are now allowed, except for the Children’s Haematology and Oncology Day stay where just one parent/caregiver is able to attend their appointment with their child. Exceptions by special arrangement only.

Patients and visitors should also read the additional more detailed visiting guidelines for each specific hospital.

More COVID-19 information

Open reporting key to improving our health system

Friday 4 December 2015Media release3 minutes to read

THIS IS AN ARCHIVED PAGE. The advice and information contained in this page may not be current and it should only be used for historical reference purposes.

Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) remains committed to transparent and open reporting of Serious Adverse Events, a Health Quality and Safety Commission report shows.

In Canterbury, 58 serious adverse events were reported in the July 2014-2015 year – up slightly on the previous year when there were 56 events.

David Meates, Canterbury DHB chief executive, says all incidents, including near-misses, brought to the DHB’s attention are investigated.

“In all cases measures are put in place to reduce the chance of these events from recurring. Ensuring we remain transparent and have an open reporting culture is key to us being able to make the necessary changes to ensure the same thing doesn’t happen again,” he says.

Mr Meates says preventing adverse events relies on our clinicians’ continued efforts to review and learn from mistakes when they happen.

“We must continually scrutinise and ask ourselves how can we improve these systems and what could we be doing better? Have we missed anything here?

“Because when we stop asking these questions, we stop really caring about what we’re doing and that’s when the chance of things going wrong only increases.”

Canterbury has a strong culture where staff are encouraged to feel safe reporting incidents.

“If they don’t feel safe speaking up, then it’s impossible for us to improve what we’re doing, or learn from what went wrong,” he says.

“Most importantly, we have an obligation to our patients, their family and whanau to be open and transparent and be honest about the care we’ve provided – even if it hasn’t gone to plan.”

Mr Meates says when harm does occur, it’s never easy for anyone involved.

“Nobody in health sets out to deliberately cause harm. If a patient’s condition deteriorates unexpectedly and suddenly, it can have a devastating effect – our staff come to work every day with the aim of improving people’s health,” he says.

“It’s absolutely heart-breaking for everyone involved when the opposite happens.”

The increase in the number of events reported this year reflects Canterbury’s emphasis on learning from system failings, Mr Meates says.

Falls in hospital remain the majority of incidents, counting for 40 out of the 58 events reported this year.

Mr Meates says Canterbury has a ‘whole of system’ approach to falls prevention, in the wider community, rest homes and in hospital.

“We continue to focus on patient assessment and tailoring falls prevention strategies to meet the needs of patients while they are in hospital and when they go home.”

Read the full Canterbury DHB SAE report here.

ENDS

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Page last updated: 19 October 2022

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